


Primum non Nocere

by ctrlzqmrino



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Badasses, Dark, Eventual Romance, F/M, Graphic Description of Corpses, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, How Do I Tag, No Time Turner, Ravenclaw Hermione Granger, Sane Bellatrix Black Lestrange, Slow Burn, Slytherin Harry Potter, Time Travel, Tom Riddle Being an Asshole, i think, kinda i guess, tom riddle is a badass
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 06:15:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18463169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ctrlzqmrino/pseuds/ctrlzqmrino
Summary: It is the January of 1998. Voldemort has fully overwhelmed Britain and Harry and Hermione are on the run, outlawed and with extremely large bounties on their heads. Ron has long left their gang of bandits but, in a sudden decision that twists both protagonists' insides, the whole Weasley clan is executed as one of the first orders of proverbial mad king Voldemort in demonstration to blood traitors. Two thirds of the golden trio are losing hope in gallons by the second.Until, that is, a haggard Professor Slughorn stumbles upon them in the woods with an olive branch extended.Now, in 1944, Hermione Granger and Harry Evans don't expect anything but the worst from Tom Riddle. And their expectations are exceeded. Like a crocodile with its head raised over the surface, he waits before striking. But, may it be the face of Gellert Grindelwald or a character closer to them than they initially thought, they soon find that Tom Riddle is not the only player in the game to be afraid of.(im gonna publish another rewritten version of this because i have qualms with its current state and wanna tweak some stuff regarding plot)





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> heyy. this is the first story ive written and published in decades and i plan for it to be full length. its kinda pretty really super stupid so please bear with me and id rlly rlly appreciate constructive criticism. be harsh in reviewing. and fuck if im not happy u decided to give this story a chance. anyhow about faceclaims to me its emma watson and daniel radcliffe and christian coulson. but imagine whoever you want. like uhh peppa pig as hermione and jojo from jojos bizarre adventures as harry. so yeah. also this prologues short as shit. and all the chapters lengthen tapering towards the middle. THANKS.
> 
> jk rowling owns the harry potter universe but the plot ive made extended from cannon is mine. and there are ocs smattered here and there. some dialogue in this prologue is quoted directly from the first movie adaptation of deathly hallows. story posted until fourth chapter first on wattpad (under the same username and profile) so im unloading the shit right here.

Hermione Jean Granger is a fighter for the light and against evil. Hermione is a good person.

“It’s okay. You did those things for the better,” she thought to herself in the quiet of her dormitory. She tossed and turned in bed restlessly, the temperature of the room off and her duvet feeling too heavy.

In the background, her dorm mates were sound asleep. But the bushy-haired witch’s brain whirred with thought, the facts clear to her. 

No, she has no remorse. 

Not quite. What she’d done was necessary. Necessary to keep her friends safe and themselves afloat in this war. 

She turned to the right, her ribcage pressed into the mattress. With her one knee bent and the other leg outstretched, this pose was no more comfortable than any other position; it did nothing to stifle her overactive thoughts.

She had done things others would not consider to be pacifist. But yes, they had kept Ron and Harry unharmed, and by extension, the people of Hogwarts.

Snape, she’d lit on fire, no denying that, but Quirrell’s– Voldemort’s– concentration had been thrown off. Would Snape have succeeded in countering the dark wizard? She couldn’t be sure.

She had eradicated the threat that was Rita Skeeter. And as for Marietta, she had it coming. She was fully in the right to look out for her friends’ wellbeing.

She stood vigilant behind Harry to take on whatever he could not.

_ Now you’re thinking logically,  _ she mused. _ Rita Skeeter was a pest to the general population, anyway. Marietta made her bed and laid in it. _

_ But Snape? And what about Quirrell? _

No. She’s right, she knows she’s right. 

Content, she allowed sleep to take her,  and with her thoughts settled, the duvet upon her folded her in comfortably.

A weight has been lifted off her neck. The freedom is euphoria.

_ \---The summer after fifth year--- _

“Honey,” her mother says to her one afternoon while baking cookies. “You’ve grown.”

Hermione smiled at the normalcy.

She tied her hair and slipped on some gloves. Her mother’s miniature garden needed tending. 

“Can’t stay a baby forever, mum.” She replied. After all, a magical war required hardness you attained with age. 

Her mother hummed lightly, but the sound came out strained and her eyes had the slightest unnerved squint to them. She slid the baking pan into their oven.

“I mean that you’ve changed,” her mother said. The older woman’s smile was opaque, and set beneath was furtive worry. “You aren’t as,” Mrs. Granger faltered, tasting the word before saying it, “sentimental.”

“Is that a good thing?” Hermione asked. She had never liked to disappoint her mother, and she did think she still harboured some sentiment.

“What do you think?” Her mother said, her mouth now a thin line, her body casually leaned against the counter.

Hermione paused, passing her a sidelong glance, but kept her hands busy. The floral apron was tied neatly behind her back when she answered. 

“Yes, I think so.”

_ \--- August 1997 --- _

Ron had been having his turn with Slytherin’s locket all morning. When Ron had first worn it, he had been volatile, but was reined in after a chat with Hermione. He had been controlled, as much as he could be, anyway, and had begun to sit in the corner of the tent and glare openly at his friends.

Not that Hermione did not understand, of course. Because some garish necklace whispering poison in your ear was by no means a pleasant pastime. It was too bad that Ron did not handle it as well as Harry and she did.

When Ron had stormed up to them in the middle of the day to complain about their progress, the already tense situation took a turn for the worse.

"We found __ a horcrux __ already!" Harry yelled. The remnants of the anger the horcrux had roused in him were slow to leave even when he’d already passed it to Ron.

"Yeah, and we're about as close to getting rid of it as we are to finding the rest of 'em, aren't we?” 

As they went at it, Hermione noted Ron’s appearance. He looked awful.

Dirt and leaves clung to his attire, and a small twig was sticking out of his mussed hair. Dark bags weighed down the lower lids of his bloodshot eyes and his face was white, wan. She wondered if they all looked this way.

Hermione scrambled up from the table to stand before Ron, concerned with how hot Ron’s temper was running. The past few months, she had felt desperate, perpetually on the brink of tears. It did not help that Ron nowadays evoked a small rage in her that was egged on by the locket. 

"Ron,"  Hermione pleaded, voice a little more sharp than she liked.

She had a good idea how she looked; unkempt and frumpy. Her riotous hair was impossible after months of low maintenance and they all smelled like something better left unidentified.

They had forgone much of their hygiene, and even the tent, shabby from months of use as a permanent home, stood testament to their predicament. But now, with their whole situation’s indignity exacerbated by the shouting match, the tent felt much tighter and suffocating.

"Ron, take off the horcrux–- take it off–" 

She was ignored

"Do you know why I listen to that radio every night? To make sure I don't hear Ginny's name," he was frantic and short of breath, "or Fred's or George's, or mum's-

"And I'm not listening  _ either,  _ is that what you're getting at?" Harry said, reaching for the edge of Ron’s shirt. " _ You think I don't know how this feels?"  _ Ron pulled away, face red as his hair. He tore the locket off, but he wasn’t defused.

 

"No, you don't __ know how it feels! Your parents are dead _! You have no family! _ " 

 

In that event, something had snapped. Harry’s bright eyes widened for a second, but then his brows furrowed in frustration.

 

He seemed to appear in front of Ron before Hermione could blink, and threw a punch at the other boy. It landed on the side of Ron’s face and he sputtered before the red-head shoved Harry hard and attempted to punch Harry himself. They stumbled about in an attempt to oust each other. The fight was blurry and Hermione willed her tears to subside. 

 

She crouched down to the ground, head never moving to look as they fought, and she lost awareness, as though she were dipped into a pool of ice-cold water and her nerve endings were frozen solid.

When she surfaced, Ron had stormed out of the tent and she saw his outline disappearing into the distance, his form blurred by the fog. Soon, she joined him, their cries echoing off the trees.

  
They called his name until they were hoarse. In unspoken agreement, both of them moved towards the campsite at once when their voices could no longer bear the strain. They descended from the woods, returning to the tent once more, and defeatedly said his name again as though Ron would come back. 

\--- November nine, 1997. ---

_ Voldemort overwhelms Britain; _   
_ Lord Voldemort, esteemed dark wizard, has gained full control of Britain and the Ministry of Magic- _

_ “ _ Fuck.” Harry swore. “This is bad.”

She thought about before, when she would scold the boys for cussing. Innocence, now so far away, she had taken for granted.

\--- December 1997 ---

_ “Mione, you’re brilliant, honestly.” Ron slurred as he stumbled down the stairs drunk. It was the first half of fifth year and Hermione had already worked herself into a headache she pointedly ignored on an essay, last person in the common rooms after curfew. _

_ “Ron,” Hermione admonished gently, “you’re drunk. How did you manage to get yourself down the stairs?” _

_ “I’m sorry,” Ron said, “okay? But hear me out.” He waved his hands in the air, and then looked at her, waiting for affirmation. _

_ Hermione decided to humor him, and nodded, putting her quill aside. _

_ “Right, give it a go.” _

_ The redhead took a lock of her hair between his fingers and plopped down beside her on the red sofa. He faced her profile, putting his forearm behind the back of his seat. _

_ “Hermione, I’m a right arse all the time, and without you, ‘Arry and I would have been dead. You’re smart and amazing. Can you promise me something?” _

_ Hermione wavered and her cheeks had coloured.  _

_ “Promise?” She repeated after the redhead, leaving him to continue the thought.  _

_ “Promise me that you’ll never give up. You’re amazing. Maybe some of the world doesn’t agree, but it’d be a lot less bright without you.” Ron said, smiling at her drunkenly. She could almost feel the warmth of the alcohol in the air. _

_ She didn’t mind the firewhiskey in that moment. _

It’s the memory she first recalls when she reads the newspaper.

_ Weasley Blood Traitors Executed for Demonstration. _   
_ The Weasleys of the formerly untainted sacred twenty-eight executed yesterday morning on account of treason by defying our Lord Voldemort in their beliefs. Molly Weasley (née Prewett), Arthur Weasley,  their children William Arthur, Charles, Percy Ignatius, Fred, George, Ronald Bilius, and Ginevra Molly, were prosecuted and executed privately by death eate- _

“No,” Harry said, “no, it can’t… They couldn’t… The wouldn’t have.”

But Hermione wasn’t listening. What, she wondered, would Voldemort gain from lying? He was a raving lunatic but, quoting Dumbledore, the most brilliant student to have ever passed Hogwarts. 

Hermione didn’t think insanity completely smothered intelligence, but she couldn’t be certain. Lie and people would see you as an unreliable overlord. And what good could come from a family which has openly opposed you for two consecutive wars?

A lone tear streamed over her cheek and down her eye after being held back for so long, and it was followed by a river. 

She wanted…

She wanted.

She wanted to exact revenge. Personally. Her mouth twisted and she swiped a tear before it exited her eye. Harry… he would play no part in this plan of hers; she did not want to burden him any more than he already felt.

With this raw anger in her, her vigor was renewed.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter has been completely reworked.   
>  a lot of thanks to my beta, fundamentalblue, who beta d this whole chapter, suggested what to and what not to write, wrote multiple words in multiple areas, and gave me writing advice. without her, this chapter would be shit. she's a lovely person and you should look into her works here on ao3 :))


	2. Chapter One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh yeah i should say i dont have a beta so sorry if you catch some mistakes.

**chapter one: nettles and frost**   
  
  
  


**_Let's go down, down; low down where i know i should not go._ **   
_"No Buses" - Arctic Monkeys_   
  
  


The winds howled like banshees into the dead, hollow night. Harry Potter and Hermione Granger traipsed about the forest of who-knows-whatnow, carrying nothing but their wands and Hermione's limitless beaded bag.

The weather was frosty and bit at their blue edges. It was around a month after that last edition of  _The Daily Prophet_ had been released in detail of the execution of the Weasley clan and Harry and Hermione had just sidestepped being caught by the snatchers who'd become short of their wands only after what seemed like endless dueling between two and a whole group of the matted-haired minions of Voldemort.

It seemed that time and time again Hermione and Harry had another thing taken from them in as they looked through stray newspapers and magazine clippings nipped off the streets- Hogwarts Academy of Magic, their freedom and Britain, and just recently, the Weasleys- and the fact they could only read the papers in packed bushes and  _miles_ away from where they could help constantly induced the need to dry heave and regurgitate their sorrows out of leaden stomachs.

Therefore, what they did was  _continue running._ At face value, it was awfully cowardly. But that starlight of hope that beamed in them, as thin as it was, believed that they could find the horcruxes and defeat the insane dark wizard Voldemort once and for all.

Harry carded a hand gruffly through his dark, messy locks, his wand gripped tightly in one hand as a young, flighty gazelle whipped past them in a hurry. Harry stared at Hermione with large green eyes.

The now-duo moved slowly through the nettle-infested grounds with dwindling determination and growing stress.

The two reached a particularly dark thicket in the dense, dark-green forest, the shadows crawling about like tattered tendrils under the soft light of the full moon, and they both whispered a quiet but effective "lumos" with their two wands poised for whatever may've crawled in the black's trenches, which proved only to be a common barn mouse who squeaked noisily in its escape. Hermione growled angrily at it as she kicked the dried leaves, something Harry might have chuckled at before, but on their trek they continued with just a hitch.

Snaking around a tree trunks in their thinned frames, something made Hermione stop a bit, and softly, she asked the boy beside her, "What day is it?"

Harry deliberated over this for a few seconds, while surprised the ever-observant Hermione Granger could not keep track of something as mundane as the date in time.

"I'm pretty sure the seventh years are now to return from Holiday break," answered Harry uneasily, Hermione beating him to it with a breathy "January, then. 1998." The male nodded in response, having continued their dawdling-through-the-forest mid-conversation, only to stop again as a (assumedly) large force rustled through the foliage.

The shaking neared them like a large animal,  _no, human-- a werewolf?_ _,_ it was not full moon tonight, they knew as they chanced a look at the stars, but nevertheless the thing clambered through the evergreen as though wanting not to be noticed but failing miserably; which was why both former Hogwarts students nearly cried a curse they'd learned how to defend themselves from from DADA at the rotund figure that jumped at them and twisted the edges of harry's shirt into chubby  _human hands_ with a grunt.

"Stupefy!" Hermione yelled on the spot, the red spell just barely missing harry's arm as it collided with the shadowed man's chest. As the figure went limp and fell with a heavy thud on the grounds, hermione strengthened her lumos to reveal a stunned Horace Slughorn; the victim of her sudden spell, and with a look of customary horror at having attacked a professor, she froze and doubled back.

"Harry, are you okay?" She asked immediately, crouching beside the fallen Harry Potter, hands tightly gripped now onto the mouth of her beaded bag as she ripped it open. Frantically shaking his head, the so-called 'chosen one' gave noteworthy glances to the stupefied potions Professor beside them. Hermione blanched as she noticed a large injury along his thigh where his pants had torn and crimson bled darkly through the fabric- it was grizzled and the tissues bled without repent.

The witch grabbed the dittany within her bag on instinct, dropping a few slivers of the essence onto the professor's open wound. Where the cells were supposed to knit back together and leave only the stain of crimson was the same wound as it already was, the healing potion dropped in looking not to have done a thing. It was a certain cause for alarm.

"Scourgify," cast Hermione at the blood which vanished into non-existence, only for new blood to leak out the laceration. The gryffindor froze for a while as she kneeled beside the professor but soon decided that to waste anymore dittany for what was obviously a lost cause was not something she could take for granted; leaving her to properly scan the Professor-- and the first thing she noticed was that he'd lost weight and gained sallow, thin skin. The dark circles under his eyes threatened to swallow the whole of his face with the way they seemed to enlargen by the second, and with a bemused grimace, Harry cast a 'enervate'- so the waxen-faced man shot up like a lightning bolt.

"Mister Potter, Miss Granger! Just the people I wanted to see!" He exclaimed immediately, accent a shallow attempt at his usual jovial composition and scratchy as though he'd not used his voice for quite a while.

The man took heavy breaths, hands shooting immediately for his wound. A pudgy finger dipped into the deep cut and he howled like a kicked dog. Hermione covered her mouth with her hand to keep her horrified scream in, but the man recovered in an astoundingly short time.

"Professor-" Harry tried, but he closed his gaping mouth when the Professor looked at him severely in the eyes. The glare was punishing.

He blessed Hermione with the same stare before pulling the bag he'd had behind his back into his lap, sat up, and began fishing through the folds of leather.

"Aha! Here it is-" he yelled triumphantly, extending a weathered roll of parchment towards Harry, then holding a finger to his lips to hold in the words the Boy-Who-Lived surely had behind his tongue to say. "Let me explain before you read that." He began before being cut off,

"But, professor, your  _wound, sir-"_ An uneasy Hermione piped up, gesturing agitatedly at the serration in question. To her horror, the professor  _laughed it off_ with hardly any degree of regard they would expect from a sane human.

"Sir, it won't close- it's life threatening! How long have you had it?"

"Miss Granger, I tell you that there's no need to panic. The fact that it is life threatening is not something I want any of you two to worry about.  _Besides,_ I need to tell  _you two_ something."

Hermione was effectively shut up but her eyes still followed the gory sight of his leg, bloodied and raw in the cut, and Slughorn started;

"Voldemort is raging out there, students. I've renounced my position as potions professor-- they surely would have fired me, anyway-- but i had to find you two under the commands of Headmaster Dumbledore." Slughorn rambled hastily, gesturing to the yellowed paper in Harry's hands.

"Ronald Weasley was to go with you but due to his absence-- you get the idea." He said hysterically, leaving Hermione to stiffen at the mention of her fallen lover's name and Harry to frown subtly.

"Dumbledore's commands? Dumbledore's alive?" Harry asked Slughorn, desperation in his voice and a burst of hope shooting through his chest- only to be watered down by Slughorn's sullen shake of head.

"No, no, m'boy. This was a backup plan he'd arranged at the crack of sixth year. However i do still mourn the loss of Albus," Slughorn answered morosely, before shaking his head as if to clear it of the lint within. "It was in case You-Know-Who got his way, which he clearly has. Mister Potter and Miss Granger, you're our last hope."

Hermione's already light face paled further at his hopeless choice of wording, little had she known that he was exaggerating in no form. "Take this," Slughorn continued quickly, placing a corsage of silver in Hermione's hand, "and when you're ready, mutter  _'inde nunc_ '. That is, if you consent to this plan, which I beg you do."

"How'd you find us, Professor?" Hermione cut in, honey eyes large as she looked confusedly into Slughorn's. The man gave her a warm smile, before saying to them, voice low- "with magic Dumbledore would never approve of, i can assure you of that." He chuckled sadly to himself, face contorting again into that of hard-lined severity. "But do not worry- I paid for it, you see," he pointed at his wound.

"You should know that whatever plan lies embedded within that scroll may save the world if properly executed." He informed them quietly, voice taking on a calm new low like something between a whisper and the standard warning drone of a professor. "--don't you?" He asked now after what looked like a moment of second thought, to which Hermione looked around herself unsurely. Harry, however, gave a hard nod. "Of course, Professor."

Horace Slughorn nodded in a smiling response, and closing his eyes serenely, lolling back, he breathed his last with the howl of the wolves echoing through the midnight.

Hermione looked oddened and surprised by the sudden passing, glancing at where the potions master's heart beat still but slowed into a fatal prowl, and then looked from the parchment in Harry's hands to the man himself. Nodding with no need to be told again, he unfurled the rolled up scroll, immediately recognizing the familiar hand of Albus Dumbledore written in unfaded ink on the parchment; starting with an " _August_   _27, 1996."._

_"I, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, have composed this so-called 'plan b' in case Tom Marvolo Riddle Junior, known also as Voldemort, prevails against the light and takes full control of the magical community of Britain."_

Hermione quickly shifted so to sit beside her best friend, her intelligent eyes reading quickly over the first few words.

_"Using a spell i have entrusted to my brother, Aberforth Dumbledore, which is not to be written within this parchment lest it falls into malicious hands, you will be transported back to 1944, where Tom Marvolo Riddle will be eighteen years of age and stalking Hogwarts corridors as head boy. This plan is to be carried out by Harry James Potter, Hermione Jean Granger, and Ronald Bilius Weasley."_

Harry turned to look at the girl at his side to see what expression her volatile face may now have been harbouring, surprised to see only a blank face and a thin mouth. It was only as the black-haired boy looked into her eyes that he found a fire blazing within him that told him of many different thoughts. Twisting back to the parchment, the image of the young Lord Voldemort in the chamber of Secrets flashed before his eyes.

_"Under the guise of students from Beauxbatons seeking refuge from Gellert Grindelwald, you will enter Hogwarts as transfers and seventh years with Tom Riddle. You are to stop him in any way possible and hope to destroy his two current horcruxes, the Gaunt Ring and his diary. Present this scroll to myself in the forties. If_ _I_ _am correct,  the courier of this scroll will have by then notified Aberforth of this plan_ _,_ _and my brother has procured everything you need for this trip."_

Harry nodded as his eyes followed along the letter's script, before a thought occurred to him. He questioned Hermione with an expression.

"Would this work like a time turner in a loop?"

"No, continue reading." She answered, brows now knit together as she read over he whole parchment; and sure enough, Harry continued on to read-

_"The magic that will be used in this plan is very old and does not work as does a time-turner, where_ _your time-travelling selves have already been to the place which you have jumped to_ _. Stepping into 1944 will be coming into a fresh, fickle timeline which will change according to how you influence it."_

"Ah," said harry in acknowledgement, carding a hand through his messy black hair in his vague confusion. The girl beside him jerked her head in return, but the next line on the parchment made the duo's breaths hitch and catch in their throats.

_"As where you shall travel will be a whole different timeline, know that there will be_ **_no way whatsoever_ ** _to return to this time after it."_

Followed by Albus Dumbledore's signature and a "Crush out all the sensitive names in this parchment (save for mine.)", that was where the letter concluded.

________

"This plan is  _very_ dangerous," Hermione commented forlornly as her hands laid cupped over each other on the bar countertop of the Hog's head, sat upon a screachy stool. The overall look of the pub was that you'd see in the abandoned dustbowl of a movie scene, disused with cobwebs and spiders hanging about the place's corners. She drearily hypothesised that Ron would have hated it here.

The silver corsage she and Harry had used to portkey here had been dropped into the infinity of her beaded bag. It had taken some major convincing to make Hermione see his way after Harry found himself immediately ready to follow through with the ridiculous plan but soon enough, Hermione, with a sad look as she remembered all she'd lost and would lose, sighed and nodded. 

"It wouldn't be like Albus  _not_  to make plans of such nature." Remarked Aberforth scathingly as he prepared the runes for the time travel on seven large stones. The boy who lived scoffed at Hermione and waved her thought away with a dismissive hand. "And wasn't it  _you_  who agreed to this plan about an hour ago? We've gone over this, Hermione." He said as he pulled on a white button up and tucked it into his navy dress pants, feet ensconced in shiny, patent-leather oxfords.

The bush-haired girl, who was already dressed in a white, padded-shouldered blouse whose crimped hem was neatly folded underneath the waist of her midi skirt, raised an eyebrow at him as though offended, and she continued swinging her legs.

They were instructed to dress forties so as not to look suspicious in their denim tattered pants and baggy shirts. Aberforth had, with a taunting voice, told them earlier that he could not weasel out more than a few outfits for each of them from old friends and that they'd have to find a few more fits in "forties Hogsmeade or whatever."

Hermione had, with a look of mortification, refused the rogue lipstick and foundation he'd offered her beforehand, something that he'd laughed at as though it were a pathetic joke before tossing the two things gratefully in the waste bin with a distinct, plaster-clatter, and save for Harry still buckling a belt on, they were practically ready to jump onto a forties catwalk in means of appearance.

"Put on those earrings now, the runes are nearly ready." Grunted Aberforth Dumbledore, and both forties-dressed teens quickly clasped a small, intricately-carved metal ring onto their earlobes.

_"Time travel of this degree-- several decades-- can prove to be very unstable. These earrings will ensure that when you arrive in '44 that the Hogsmeade residents_ **_won't_ ** _discover you two maimed and chopped into several separate parts." Aberforth informed them sardonically as he shoved their luggage and two earrings at them shortly after having successfully thrown their clothes on the dusty floor beside their feet, "True, like the worst apparition, you'll surely feel nauseous upon arrival, but nothing further than that and prolonged puking will befall you."_

Upon contact with the ring on her earlobe, it bit into the cartilage like a sharp, red-hot clamp _,_  and Hermione noticed that Harry must have felt the same if his flinch and quick reach for his ear was anything to go by. It was made up for, however, by the sigh-inducing and fluid rush of magic that seeped through them like blood in the arteries from that little pinpoint in their hearing organs, finishing itself with a rinse over their planes like warm water slowly being poured over them from above their temples.

"Here we are." Said Aberforth Dumbledore, a wide circle of seven stones carved into with meticulous runes laid before them under the harsh fluorescent light bulb in the middle of the Hogs Head. "Step into the circle."

Harry Potter buckled his belt with a funny sense of finality, and Hermione Granger hopped primly off the stool upon which she sat, the heels of her brogues making dull and faint clicks against the wooden flooring of the Hog's Head. At the edge of the arranged runes, they both smoothed their hands along the folds of their shirts, looking at each other with despairing irises.

The two stepped into the circle together, fingers interlaced as Aberforth had instructed earlier, and a soft glow began to light in the shape of the circle around their feet. Hermione smiled, the expression subdued by her sad eyes, and Harry squeezed her hands reassuringly. The sad face was then replaced by a fire burning up in her eyes and thinned lips, something Harry copied as Aberforth perused his little fairy ring.

"Clear." The old man mumbled. "No turning back now. You're about to make the travel.", something which Harry responded to with a resolute nod. Aberforth stared at them for half a minute, face softened from his usual disparaging expression, and with a light that seemingly washed over his smoothed eyes, he nodded himself.

 _"Vicisum in planeta retro, sic erit tempus, revocetur."_ Aberforth began to recite, and the world around Harry and Hermione seemed to stop all motion save for the wind that'd began to blow up from the circle they stood in and the movements of Aberforth's mouth.

 _"Iam non erit haec peregrinare hic in hoc tempore."_ He continued, which made the circular light beneath them lighten to an eye-burning brightness, and the stones levitate shakily.  _"Sed in locis in praeteritum."_

The stones spun around them in an increasingly swift speed, both their eyes bugging as their hands subconsciously tightened around each other's and their hair blew up in a jerky billow. " _Ut vos habere misericordiam in eis in itinere, circe."_

 ** _"Numquam redire."_** Aberforth finished, and as the last word slipped off the tip of his tongue, the stones crashed into their bodies abruptly, the hit but a dull thud against their skin, and blew into a million tiny pieces. The light encased them and wrenched them down, and before Hermione could even let out a scream, the fluorescent bulb over her eyes turnt skyward burst into a thousand sparks, and they both, alongside the broken stones used in the spell and their luggage, vanished into thin air with a scratchy blur.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dont know latin. i used the yandex translator. so i apologize if my guy aberforth was spitting out some 6ix9ine lyrics or something :(


	3. Chapter Two

******Chapter Two: Nineteen Forty-Four**  
  
  


**_I don't want to be just another fighter without fire, nothing to inspire._ **  
_"Zoom", Last Dinosaurs._

 

 

The first thing that came to her mind when Harry Potter and Hermione Granger arrived in 1944 was the  _mad, scratching need_ to empty out her insides. So, beneath the pounding rain and under the roofed alley of Hogsmeade, she bent over in the corner of the dingy in-between, and wretched out her dinner.

It was deep in the midnight, just like how they had left 1997, and what was presumably a pitch-black sky behind was covered in dark nimbus clouds and blurred by the falling rain. They acknowledged perfunctorily that the rune-engraved stones that had dissapeared with them shook in the air, bathed in high, green flames. They turned to ash.

"Harry? A' you okay?" Asked Hermione after finishing her throwing-up, looking behind herself to see Harry doing so himself through off-kilter, nauseous vision. She swayed a bit from the still-there feel of time travel, cursing the weather and her ill-chosen brogues that surely would get ruined in the mud, and just before falling like she did upon arrival, the tenor of Harry rung out to have her catch herself on a store's stone walls.

"Of course, just peachy." Snarked Harry in return, and the boy-who-lived examined his circular glasses askew upon his nose- once again, shattered across the lenses. He swore beneath his breath and stood up, the dizziness persistent in ghosting his gait towards his partner. He reached for the earring on his ear, and upon the brush of his thumb's pad, it gave one last jolting bite of magic and went--  _inactive._

Dead. Just like that. He threw it into the alley and vaguely registered the  _clang!_ it had made before whirling towards Hermione.

"Let's go." She decided, following along Harry's actions to unclip her earring but instead to place it in her breast pocket. Harry just raised his eyebrows as though to gesture towards the storm screeching outside their flimsy shelter, but Hermione only pursed her lips at him dismissively before pulling a large, cobalt-blue umbrella out of her beaded bag and opening it into the mouth of the alley.

Quickly clambering beneath it, Hermione and Harry made their way out of the sleepy Hogsmeade with their for-show bags of luggage on their backs, observing with apprehension that a few of the windows shone with bright yellow light.

They trudged all the way up to the magnificent castle of Hogwarts, stopping in front of the entrance gates. "Well, what do we do now? I don't think a simple Alohomora will open the  _Hogwarts Castle gates._ " Said Harry, who looked up at the large gates.

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him dangerously, but alas, before her biting remark left her mouth, a voice cut in through the storm that was shrill and old in their sensitive ears.

"What are you two students doing wandering late at night?" The wretch-inducing voice called to them cuttingly, the unclear figure of a squat little woman drawing forth from the shadows to peer at them with bright, grey, and  _damning_ eyes. The duo was sure that they'd never had a person of this sort at Hogwarts- or was this the custodian? Was that not Apollyon Pringle?

"What are you two doing here? I've not seen none of your faces before." Asked the dumpy, humpbacked woman to break them out of their reverie, and she menacingly swung an accusing, crooked finger at them while her other hand was twined around her own umbrella handle to keep it perched upon her shoulder. Hermione's brows rose to her hairline before answering to save Harry and Her from whatever impulsive, frustrated words were about to roll off his tongue.

"Hello, miss. We're students from Beauxbatons seeking refuge here from Grindelwald." She began tentatively, a sweet smile stretched across her face in hopes of charming the intimidating dwarf of a witch. In return, the woman shamelessly had her eyes bear down upon first Hermione's stature, and then quickly on that of Harry's, before her features softened-- still keeping her narrowed eyes on them.

"Beauxbatons transfers?"

"Yes, miss. We were wondering if you could show us to Headmaster Dum--"

Hermione stumbled over that about-to-be sentence, before quickly recovering with a lame "er, Dippet. We'd decided to go from France but here, where my companion's family has a few relatives." She explained in a bitter voice.

"Oh, dears, that's horrible. Grindelwald, what a menace." The witch said apologetically, mood switching so swiftly to that of sympathy that Harry had to stifle a snigger. The short witch opened the gates, making a  _"fwump"_ as they swung, and she extended a wrinkly-skinned hand towards the duo with a large, naturally foreboding smile

"Come along now, dearies." She requested in a shrill, grandmotherly voice, babushka wrapped around her grey-hair covered head bobbing as the brisk wind drafted along their silhouettes, and the now-trio trodded up to the large oak doors that opened into the Hogwarts entrance hall.

The gatekeeper wrenched the large oak doors open with a frightening ease.

"Andrew?"

The little old woman's voice rung resoundingly throughout the great hall, and at that, a figure at the very end; just about to trod down the stairs to the dungeons, stopped and turned around.

"That's Andrew, a prefect." Said the gatekeeper with an air of doting, and the so-called Andrew stalked carefully from the back of the hall to just past the door over the threshold where the trio stood. The gatekeeper cocked her head at the tawny-haired Andrew as he neared, and the boy of average height stopped just in front of them to flash a large, unnerving smile at them. "Andrew, would you please get a teacher? These two say they'd like to speak with Headmaster Dippet."

"Of course, Miss Heath. I do not think Professor Dumbledore has retired yet." He said, the derisive edge to his voice unheard by the little Miss Heath but echoing a thousand times in the ears of both Harry and Hermione. Miss Heath gave the boy, Andrew, a satisfied little nod, tightening the babushka first and foremost around her head before spinning back and out the oak doors again.

"Andrew." The strange boy said by way of greeting, waving them over to follow. The next thing he said made Hermione seize up.

"Andrew  _Parkinson."_

The shocked Hermione nearly stumbled over in disbelief, unashamed as she stared blatantly at the male Parkinson beside herself. Now that she looked at him, tawny hair (definitely not that of the Pansy she knew, that was for sure), pale skin, and the slight upturn of his nose that was the Parkinson trademark, she saw the similarities between him and her Hogwarts adversary- the same edges to the side of the face and the distinct, evilly reassured look they had about their eyes.

"Miss? Are you quite alright?" Asked Andrew Parkinson, and Hermione could hardly believe those words had left his mouth before she straightened up. "My apologies, Mister Parkinson. 'Just thought i forgot something back home." She said quickly, and the Parkinson boy stilled for a while, accusing eyes staring into her soul, before they darted to the messy-haired Harry Potter.

"Oh, no, it's fine. So," he began after a oddly earnest assurance, and Harry's eyes for once peered over the other boy's robes that had Slytherin embroidered on--  _nothing so shocking- imagine a Parkinson in Gryffindor, or--_ ** _Hufflepuff_**. Harry had to restrain his laughter. "What are your names?" The Parkinson boy asked them, one light-brown eyebrow arched up.

"Hermione Jean Granger." Hermione said smoothly, glaring incessantly ahead at him when Andrew looked at her jeeringly- presumably concerning the Muggle surname. No, not  _presumably,_ ** _obviously._** Harry did not supress the smirk he shared with Hermione, the corner of his lips tugging up maliciously at her unwavering formidability; which was something that went unnoticed by the Parkinson boy.

"Harry James Evans." Harry said after her following a brief moment of deliberation, answer firm as the Parkinson boy- their heights matching exactly- turned to him with his eyebrow still raised in a subtle, different sort of interest.

After a moment, the Parkinson boy finally asked the question they'd been expecting; "Where are you from?".

"France. We formerly attended Beauxbatons, but with the threat of Grindelwald, i suppose you can figure out the rest." Said Harry, only to have Andrew Parkinson prod further.

"Funny," he said, eyes comically large and a tinge derisive, "You don't sound French at all."

Hermione had thought of her answer should this suspicion arise, and with a sweet smile, she answered; "We'd attended Ilvermorny some years before then. Harry and i tend to jump schools often." - an excuse she knew very well was flimsy but would do for the less-than-nosey.

"Ah." Began Parkinson, clearly on the edge of asking another question, before a door they'd nearly passed opened and a tall, Auburn-haired man stepped out, spectacles tilted haphazardly off his long nose's bridge. Andrew stiffened noticeably beside them, and slowly turned to the old man, whose eyes scanned them in quiet thought. Half-moon glasses and all, there was no mistaking that this man was the famous Albus Dumbledore, whose plan for them from 1998 weighed down Harry's herringbone-lined pockets.

"Mister Parkinson, what a pleasant surprise." Said Dumbledore, but the way his blue eyes unabashedly drew to the two unfamiliar travellers told them that he was much more interested in the newcomers. "Who might these two be?"

"Harry Evans and Hermione Granger, Sir. They say they'd like to speak with the Headmaster."

"Well, then, i'd be happy to bring them to him. You may leave now, Mister Parkinson." He dismissed the boy offhandedly, who then scuttled away after giving the Professor one last disdainful glance. Dumbledore brushed an errant Auburn hair from his lined face, before smiling brightly at the two strangers in front of him, arranging his glasses.

"Greetings, I am Albus Dumbledore. Headmaster Dippet, you said you wanted to see? Well, i'm most obligated to bring you to hi-"

"No, Professor, wait-" Hermione cut him off without a thought, before clasping a hand over her mouth at her impoliteness.  _The man standing before you is a five decades younger Dumbledore!_

"Actually, Professor, this is perfect. We  _really,_ ** _really_** need to speak to  _you._ " Harry continued for her,  _thank Circe_ , and for a moment a flash of alarm ran before Dumbledore's eyes. He collected himself with an impressive smoothness, and again, he smiled at them.

"Of course," He said, gesturing to his open door. "Come in, and we will talk."

Harry and Hermione shuffled frigidly into Albus Dumbledore's office, the wizard himself entering in right afterwards in his ridiculous maroon and lavender robes like a man hovering patiently above the floors. The auburn-haired man took care in arranging himself behind his desk, the odd trinkets they'd seen during his future as headmaster on his office shelves, and strewn about - slapdash, but quaint - were transfiguration texts.

"Professor, I am Hermione Jean Granger and this is my close friend, Harry James Evans. Please read this scroll which you yourself have sent us." Reintroduced Hermione, clearly motioning for Harry to pull out the plan-parchment. Her wording -  _"Which you yourself have sent us."_ had confusion flitting across the right-now Transfiguration professor's face.

"Strange, I do not remember sending a Miss Granger or a Mister Evans a letter as of recent events." Dumbledore noted calmly, eyes half-lidded, and he delicately unrolled the furled up parchment, eyes glittering for a second when they found the handwriting to be their own, then silently reading on.

The silence stretched onwards; not quite like the sort that reminded you of a feline stretching out under the dawn sun, or deafening and intimidating. Harry and Hermione stood with their hearts lodged in their throats, the placid expression of Albus Dumbledore never once breaking as he read over the parchment, before the quiet was finally dispelled by the papery rolling of the thick parchment.

"I see. The dark lord i'd written about roams these halls, does he not?" He asked, seeming to want even a  _bit_ of elaboration in the wake of all the lines in the parchment both Hermione and Aberforth saw fit to censor out. Dumbledore had a thoughtful look on his face, his long auburn hair dropping from its cascade down his back as he cocked his head.

"I have an idea on who that might be." The professor stated casually, having Hermione look at Harry with pressed-together lips to receive the same look, albeit with less of a pressured feeling. Dumbledore went to look distractedly through his drawers, but the two students promptly felt the softest of brushes against the surface film of their minds; legilimency at its least perceptible, and they snapped their heads up; Hermione staring intensely at the Professor and Harry's eyes glancing up at the blues with hostility at the intrusion.

Albus had caught snippets of three young children, dressed head-to-toe in Gryffindor uniforms, prancing about Hogwarts walls, an redhead among the triad. A draft of disbelief cycled over his steadfast face, and he clicked his tongue off his palate.

"Very observant, that is for sure, but you two may need some guidance in the art of concealing your thoughts. However, Miss Granger was quicker to notice, peculiarly." He said, barefaced and collected. He adjusted his half-moon glasses once more as though seeing the two strangers in a whole new light, running crooked fingers down his auburn beard in comical thought.

"Concerning the parchment you have shown me, there is not much I can think of to do right now if you seek aid. However," he said, eyes jumping over the corners of the office like he expected a crook to collapse into a monster, "If you need specific things, like, say,  _occlumency lessons,_ i would be inclined to help."

"So, transfers? We haven't had a transferring student in quite a long time. I recall one here; having been during when I was a student myself, if I remember correctly-- I think her name might have been Clare MacAdams." He said, a vaguely dreamy look in his twinkling blue irises as he reminisced his own school days, the surreal moment lasting only a comfortable few seconds before he nodded at both of them sharply and exited the office again, waving for them to follow behind.

"I'm pretty sure Headmaster Dippet is still awake, the man never gets sleep." Announced Professor Dumbledore passingly as they roamed the halls, and Hermione nodded in attentive acknowledgement. The boy who lived, however, seemed to have found that particular fact somewhat bleak as he surveyed his fingernails, soil beneath the tips.

They soon were wound down to the headmaster's office. "Pickled billywig," said Professor Dumbledore, a rather peculiar password if Harry or Hermione would say so themselves, and the office's Gargoyle statue stepped aside with a nostalgic, stony grind, the three walking inside to follow. Upon entering the office, they spotted a grey, old man, hair white beyond purification, who looked up at them quietly as he scuffled papers around the surface of his desk.

"Professor Dumbledore, what a pleasant surprise. I see you've brought company." Said Armando Dippet before scratching the side of his scalp.

"Yes, Headmaster Dippet. These two are Harry James Evans," he signaled at Harry, then at Hermione; "and Hermione Jean Granger.".

"Hm, Mister Evans looks a lot like that Potter boy, Charlus, don't you think? A good student, Charlus." Dippet remarked, and Dumbledore looked at Harry again as if to appraise him, a knowing twinkle in his bright blue eyes. Dippet laced his fingers in each other, waiting ever tenaciously.

"They arrived at Hogwarts just some time ago tonight from France, having schooled formerlly at Beauxbatons. They'd like to transfer here, i think they mentioned due to the threat of Gellert Grindelwald." Explained Dumbledore good-naturedly, before waiting in silence for Dippet's response. Dippet scanned the two from head to toe, and the two students found themselves making similarities between the current and 'future' headmaster.

"I'd be happy to have some more students at Hogwarts. How old are you two, and may i see your credentials?"

"Eighteen, and, sir- about our credentials," began Harry before freezing with abrupt agitation. Hermione wracked her brain for excuses, but Dumbledore swept in like a tall, spindly knight in shining armor, explaining that an abrupt attack from Grindelwald had hit their area in France and that they had to leave as soon as was possible- only managing to bring along a few things that maybe credentials slipped their minds.

Dippet became stern at the excuse, but nodded nonetheless. "I suppose a test to see to your qualifications will suffice. I will welcome you to Hogwarts as seventh years, but please arrive back here in my office tomorrow morning- you know the password- at seven to take the test."

Harry nearly groaned at the schedule set, but Hermione, ever steady and tolerant, jerked her head in defeat.

"Alright. But i do believe a sorting is in order."

Dippet then went on to explain all the traits and such of each of the four houses, things both Harry and Hermione knew  ** _all too well,_** but when they were on the brink of jumping off a building- something that would be far more exhilarating, that was for sure- Dippet summoned the ratty Sorting Hat from a table in the office corner, and Harry was suddenly pulled off his feet, graceful as a flailing, blind baby wren, and onto the chair in front of Dippet's desk.

 _Not the most polite of ways to seat someone,_ noted Hermione while looking uneasily between Dumbledore, Dippet, and Harry.

While Hermione twiddled her fingers in trepidation, it wasn't so different on Harry's line. The ragged sorting hat was set carefully down on his black hair, fitting much better than it did in first year when it covered most of his forehead; and as it settled snugly around his scalp, it whispered, voice a juxtaposition of sweet and dying-cat like;  _"Harry James Potter of 1998, Gryffindor."_

Harry attempted to build walls up like from when Professor Snape had given him rather unsuccessful occlumency lessons, but the Sorting Hat mercillesly brough them down.  _"Now, no need for those."_ It taunted right into the depths of his mind, and his eyes involuntarily bugged.  _"How i wonder where I shall place you."_

_"Brave, courageous, the classic hero, no doubt, but within there is so much cunning. You pulled Godric's sword from the hat and yet in spite of this you are so determined and driven. You'd do well in slytherin, boy-- and, heh, have i not once told you that?"_

_"Slytherin?"_ Harry thought back incredulously, mouth's corners tilted down.  _"_ ** _Slytherin?_** _"_

_"Do i see fear? Tom Marvolo Riddle, a truly prodigious boy- but a slytherin by all means. But is it not your mission to stop him? Imagine how much you could do on the inside."_

It was a very intelligent thought, Harry could not help but admit. Perhaps the sorting hat could be a slytherin itself-- a thought that made the disrepaired hat cackle- and he began to think, quite quickly, that  _yes, that is certainly one way to pick Voldemort off his root._

_"Ah, you'd look rather nice in green and silver. Open minded, you are- I suppose it'll be-"_

**_"SLYTHERIN!"_** The hat shouted out into the office. Dumbledore stiffened just noticeably, his jaw hardening under Hermione Granger's eagle eye, but Dippet clapped, smiling and eyes bright and wrinkling his crow's feet further at their corners.

Harry, stoic, removed the sorting hat from his head; hands trembling just barely but not nearly as much as Hermione would have expected. The Hat was wandlessly suspended back into the air above the chair, and Hermione was pulled herself into the seat of glossy upholstery- not by Dippet, this time, but by a silently veered Albus Dumbledore, who looked at her and Harry-  _moreso at Harry,_  with hard eyes. Hermione supposed that Slytherin house expelled quite the amount of bad eggs but was still made confused in a way that -  _no, that can't be right -_ at his anti-snake behaviour.

She supposed it was about the possible-dark lord head boy.

"Slytherin, a fine house as all the others. Our very own head boy, Tom, he's from Slytherin." Chirped Dippet, expending great affection on his voice, and Hermione almost frowned openly. Her former thoughts were slashed away abruptly as the hat was fitted on her own head of bushy, brown hair.

 _"Hermione Granger, partner-in-crime of Harry Potter. Also from 1998, Gryffindor."_ Cooed the sorting hat, the voice seeming to come from right in the midst of her conscience. She herself attempted to build up an occlumency wall, but less experienced than Harry, it was wrenched down.  _"Tut, tut, tut."_

_"Hufflepuff is really not a house befitting of yourself, but all the others must be taken into consideration. Gryffindor, though certainly rooted deep in you, is not as apparent as it was when you arrived at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as an untainted, keen eleven-year-old."_

Hermione was not nearly as thrown off by the assessment as she'd ought to be. There were nights she laid in bed following fifth year that she felt just  _not there_ while sprawled across her red and gold linens, thinking that she'd definitely grown out of quite a few of her gryffindor traits.

 _"Ravenclaw, then?"_ She asked hopefully, shunning the green option with the fright at the thought of housing with  _Lord Voldemort_ renewed and freshened within her mind. Better Harry than her, he was a half-blood, but a very assured and proud  _mudblood_ would not settle well within the dungeons. It was one of the gryffindor traits she'd taken with her always- pride, particularly in her heritage.

 _"Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of_ **_drive, ambition, sly._ ** _You know, just_ _slytherin_ _staples."_

 _"Oh, no, no,_ ** _no._** _Not slytherin, please."_ Hermione was swift to object, hands nearly coming up to grip at her curly hairs in frustration.  _"They would not like a self-confident muggleborn in their ranks."_

 _"Hm,"_ considered the sorting hat, and she was jelly at the frayed thing's mercy.  _"You're intelligent, of clear head, and i'm feeling generous right now. Gryffindor, no more, but not Slytherin either? Then I think i'll grant your wish and say--"_

**_"RAVENCLAW!"_ **

After that, the two new 1944 students were swept away to bleak, undecorated, and temporary rooms, their luggage in the corner after being assured that everything they would need would be on the nondescript coffee table of their residences in the morning.

Harry Potter and Hermione Granger dreamt of quickly-shifting images of red, viper-like eyes that night, the dead body of Albus Dumbledore, and a thin, bony hand effortlessly casting the green  _avada kedavra._


	4. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three: Breakfast**   
  
  


 

**_Far, far, far from the everyday. Shine me a light to a different way._   
**

**_"Peoples", Cheers Elephant_ **

 

 

The following morning, Hermione Granger awoke with her bushy hair sprayed all over her face, and bolting up, she checked the clock hung up on the dull, otherwise bare walls to see it was six-fifty.

_That's ten minutes until i'm due for the test._

Quickly parting the rest of her thick hair - it was an arduous task - she shrugged off the white quilt she got tangled between her legs somewhere throughout the night where she dreamt in vivid images, ones she could still recommend clear as day. Her feet touched the cold floor purposefully, her tread swinging around unsteadily, and quickly combed through her mane with the frail little white brush the school had provided.

She didn't expect to have to fit on the uniform today; the blue and bronze thing laid, folded neatly with the Ravenclaw embroidery showing off, on the mahogany coffee table; and she instead went for another blouse; frilly and high-neck this time around, still padded at the shoulders, to pair with a navy skirt swept just past her knees.

**_Seven o' five seven o' five seven-_ **

Just when she was about to have another go at her hair which she decided she'd just  _once_ allow to splay across her shoulders, an incessant knock pounded at her door, and she slipped on her patent leather brogues; cleaned, thankfully, before opening the door to a sheepish Harry, whose black hair was more unkempt than she'd ever seen it.

 _"Hermione,"_ he breathed, with emphasis, stood in slacks and a dress shirt. "It's seven already."

Then, with a dramatic fluorish of his hand, he pointed downwards; and Hermione found her gaze being dragged down to see a trembling little house elf, smaller than even Dobby, standing shakily beside him, large and watery eyes fluttering every second like the fragile wings of a butterfly.

"Hello, Miss Hermione, Topsy is here to escort you and Mister Harry to Headmaster Dippet's office." She spoke in an unsure and quiet tone, her little knobby hands locked together behind her back and her little knobby knees shaking. A pang of sympathy hit Hermione and it was fourth year S.P.E.W. all over again as she stared down at this tiny, grey elf, and the girl smiled in what she hoped was an approachable manner.

"Of course, Topsy. I'm most grateful to be fetched by you. I'm sure Mister Harry feels the same." She thanked the elf, who responded with a blush that permeated her entire face.

"Topsy does not deserve your kindness, miss!" The elf said quickly, wearing a hangdog face, and Hermione was quick to say  _"no, no,_ I don't deserve  _your_ kindness," before Harry quickly patted her shoulder to tell her they needed to get to the Headmaster's office.

Topsy, Harry, and Hermione strode over to Dippet's office in a comfortable silence, if Hermione was not a little anxious about their tardiness, and they entered the room to see a stiff Dippet behind his desk, alongside a few official-looking characters lining the walls.

"Mister Evans and Miss Granger, just a little late, but I suppose I can forgive you this once." Dippet said, and Hermione decided that he seemed more like a McGonagall than a Dumbledore before one of the officials stepped forth.

"Both of you will take your aptitude tests at the same time. This is Miss Carters of the ministry and she will be assessing your skill in Transfiguration." Dippet said, and the petite woman, Miss Carters, smiled at the duo; a cheerful grin on her that reached her eyes as she skipped towards them on her bright yellow boots.

"Hello, Miss Granger and Mister Evans." She greeted them happily as she conjured a table and a cottontail rabbit from midair. "Would you please transfigure Bounce here into a dog? Australian Shepherd, in particular."

The test went on like that and they churned through each subject; Transfiguration, Herbology, Charms, Astronomy, History of Magic and all the others. They ended with Potions, managed by a blonde, pretty forty-something woman named Madam Blishwick. Each ministry official was stumped by their experience; especially with Hermione herself who walked through each test like a breeze (save for the divination test where she was tempted to curse out the frowning official).

"Well, Mister Evans and Miss Granger, both of you are qualified for seventh year- and more, that is certain." Said Dippet with a prideful grin, eyelids lowered peacefully. He quickly wrote on two papers after receiving their grades from the officials, and clearing his throat, he showed them each their grades.

"Miss Granger performed best in Arithmancy and Transfiguration, and Mister Evans in Defense Against the Dark Arts." Dippet announced as the two took their results in hand, and everything else passed by like a wave on the ocean had submerged them; schedules (Hermione got hers chock-full), what dormitories they would go to reside in the next day, the works of the school, everything the two knew already. It was not long before the moon dipped and the sun rose again.

____________

"I'd like to make a brief announcement." Said Armando Dippet after casting a short  _sonorus_ , catching the attention of the whole hall as Harry and Hermione stood at the unremarkable sidelines. Whispers and murmurs brewed up about the dining hall, like was customary among gossipy Hogwarts students, but they amplified by several notches when the now-headmaster waved at the new 'transfers' to come up to the front and they shambled awkwardly over, hands clipped behind themselves cordially.

"Students, these two are Harry James Evans and Hermione Jean Granger. They are transfers from Beauxbatons and seek refuge here from Gellert Grindelwald in France." He said briefly, emotions stripped from his flat, governing voice. He appeared to think for a while, the hall practically buzzing with talk as the students stared at Harry and Hermione-  _"What is with that girl's hair?" , "You know, that Evans boy looks sort of like Potter." ,_ even a melodramatic " _sigh, Charlus!"-_ and all their gazes were met with millisecond glances from the students in question.

"They have been privately sorted already, Mister Evans in Slytherin and Miss Granger in Ravenclaw. They are both to join you for seventh year, so i ask that you treat them nicely." Dippet added after a while, and bowing his head to the hall, he stepped down to attend to his own devices. Seeing this as a silent dismissal, Harry and Hermione both went to their tables, casting one last pleading look at each other before dispersing into rows of blue and green.

The first thing Hermione did as she quietly took a seat offered to her beside a blonde boy and a tall brunette was glance at the staff table, where Dumbledore appeared to be laughing at something Professor Merrythought had said as he cut primly into his steak. The man spared Hermione a glance- a short few seconds of eye contact- and smiled, something that thrust her into a period of thought, until she was pierced out of her bubble by the blonde boy beside her.

"Greetings." He said politely, extending a hand to her which she paused before taking and shaking in a firm grip. "I'm Benett Prewett."

"I'm Hermione Jean Granger." She said in reply, which Benett laughed at; a nice, birdsong-y sound that Hermione decided was not unpleasant.

"Yes," He agreed with a crooked smile, picking up his goblet of pumpkin juice. "I think that was what Dippet said."

Hermione gave her own chuckle, but to the trained ear you'd know it was hardened and hallowed further by hiding in fear of a ruling madman. She picked up her fork and spoon tentatively, as though the simple action -  _I'm just a regular Hogwarts student, nothing to see here -_ was alien to her after being deprived of it.

"Beauxbatons? Are you French?" He asked conversationally, freckled face twisted into a soft, easygoing smile, and Hermione shook her head as a response.

"Both my parents were British, hence the non-French surname, but I lived in America. I and Harry- we attended Ilvermorny beforehand." She said, the words coming to her like she  _did_ attend Ilvermorny and had never seen Hogwarts before. The Prewett "ah"ed in response, but before Hermione could get back to her own business, another tap at her shoulder indicated the brunette beside her had something to say.

"I'm Darcy-Lauren Martins and I welcome you to Ravenclaw, because Benett here seems to have forgotten to do it himself." She said as a greeting, and Hermione cracked a smile that she felt was more genuine than the others as she swiped a twisty lock of hair away from her cheek, forking a slice of honeyed ham into her mouth.

"Nice to meet you, Darcy-Lauren Martins." Replied the curly-haired girl after swallowing the piece of ham, suddenly aware of how hungry she'd been during all the nights they found nothing to eat. An abrupt, reincarnated fervor rushed through her body like a flash flood, and just barely containing the need to wolf down her whole plate and then go for another two times the serving, Darcy-Lauren opened her mouth as if to say another thing.

"What's the relationship between you and Mister Evans? You don't bear the same surname but I have a feeling you two're close, if the fact both of you are coming to Hogwarts under the same circumstances isn't enough of a tell." Asked Darcy-Lauren, who proved to be a bit of a quick-speaker, which came as a bit of a surprise to Hermione as she looked at the contrast between their aristocratic demeanor- Darcy-Lauren was someone she'd definitely assume to be pureblooded with sharp features and a fancy little smile- and her outspoken manner.

"Well..." Hermione began as she thought of what lie next to tell her, and her eyes flickered to the Slytherin table which, for the most part was concealed from her free viewing by a dark-haired Ravenclaw who faintly reminded her of her own time's Terry Boot.

"I met Harry in Ilvermorny but his parents had decided to take me with them to Beauxbatons; we're very close." Said Hermione, a lie that was  _not_ premeditated and something that she hoped Harry would not unknowingly contradict while speaking with his new housemates, and she turned around to see Benett had raised an eyebrow.

"Why couldn't your parents take you to Beauxbatons themselves?" Asked Benett before he heartily drained his cup of pumpkin juice, the goblet refilling again with the liquid. Hermione froze at the mention of her mother and father, who sat in Australia years into the future, thinking never about their magical daughter with no recollection of having raised such a character.

Benett seemed to have noticed the change his words had made and apologized profusely, expression shameful now, and Hermione went red at the apples of her cheeks as she watched him say sorry before her.

"No, er," Hermione said hastily, rubbing the back of her neck and looking searchingly at Darcy-Lauren. "It's fine!" She exclaimed just quietly enough that the other houses wouldn't hear, and Benett perked up, still frowning until she added a reinforcing, "It's fine, really."

"It's actually because..." Hermione started, before pausing again to assess him; the Prewetts were a prominent pureblooded family, she knew, and Molly Weasley herself had been born a Prewett. This Benett boy did not strike her as a blood supremacist despite his sharp visage; one that (it made her heart ache) had a few of the things Ronald Weasley of her memories had painted across his own.

"It's because i'm a muggleborn." She said, and all the blood nearly drained from her face as she observed the way the blonde Prewett stiffened, but her Gryffindor brazeness had decided to rear its head at that moment because Hecate knows what made her go on - "I didn't want to drag them over Europe because of interests concerning my magical ability."

She quieted for a moment, confused when Benett dusted himself off and looked up at her. "Do you... mind that i'm muggleborn?"

Benett went white again, more than she had when she'd concluded he was just another Draco Malfoy, before shaking his head earnestly. "No, no - did I give you that impression? I apologize again, it's like i'm hardwired to all the 'pure-is-better' rubbish with how my mother and my father raised me-- Circe knows I don't give two hoots about any of it but i still have my tendencies."

Hermione smiled widely, grin unfettered as she beamed with utmost authenticity at this boy who was well-spoken, snobby-looking, and pureblooded. Behind them, Darcy was grinning nearly twice as large.

____________

Harry James Potter was sure he was going to get thrashed by all the purebloods staring down upon his muggle surname, but he just could not care less when a slytherin gave him a place between himself and a white-blonde whose back was turned to him; meaning that, to his front would be the teenager he saw guide the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets.

He, nearly having flinched, nodded in response to the first slytherin who'd be at his left, who stared at him expectantly. Harry Potter- Evans, now- went to take the offered seat, and maybe he was too stony or his expression was too impersonal because the quiet that stretched onwards was just so damn  _unbearable_.

Voldemort himself, ever the responsible head boy, broke the silence.

"Welcome to Hogwarts, Mister Evans. I am Tom Riddle and Head Boy this year." Greeted Riddle, pointing at the glimmering head boy badge pinned to his robes, and Harry finally mustered up the courage-  _where's the gryffindor gone now, ickle Potter?-_  to make eye contact with the boy.

The effect was immediate. A searing, condemning, relentless pain sliced down like a screwdriver in his head where his lightning-bolt scar marred him, and he almost screamed- this hurt was surely worse than a thousand cruciatuses- before just disappearing and leaving him  _empty._ It was very, very similar to when he'd unclipped the earring Aberforth had given him and Hermione when they arrived in '44; strong bout of magic, of  _pain,_ as though something had to force their all into it because they were suddenly due to leave. And then stopping.

Harry was, despite the greatened numbness, more frightened of this seventeen-year-old boy than he had ever been of the grey Lord Voldemort.

"Good to meet you, Mister Riddle." Harry said, although through his teeth and ground-together molars, and just hoped he didn't sound too hostile. He concluded he  _did_ sound rather rabid when Riddle's brows raised bemusedly.

"We have not had a transfer- er, transfers- in quite a long time, I don't think." Said Riddle conversationally, face guarded, and Harry wondered why he was surprised at his behaviour.  _I mean, he isn't going to avada me, a person he has never seen before, right in the middle of the halls, is he?_

"That is what Professor Dumbledore told us upon my and Hermione's arrival here." He said in answer, taking a drink of his pumpkin juice. It tasted a little different, here in 1943.

"Is Miss Granger your sister?" Piped up the boy beside him, the one to his left, who bore a distinct accent. "You don't have the same last names but it's not a thought to dismiss. You have rather..." pause, and then derisive smirk, "muggle surnames, and aren't all muggles the same  _stupid_ , lumbering fools?"

Harry should be awarded for the restraint he had that walled the gap between standing down and punching the boy's face into oblivion on behalf of Hermione. Harry looked to gauge Riddle's reaction in response to the boy's remark to see the pale, dark-haired boy looking at the one beside Harry as though he'd just asked  _"Is dog spelled with two Gs?",_ but it did not brush off the fact that his lips curled ever so slightly in mocking amusement.

"Now, now, Avery, be nice." Said another, more refined voice at his side, and the green-eyed Harry went to face the white-blonde at his right who looked an awful lot like Lucius Malfoy.

"Ignore him, he's just being stupid. That's Leopold Avery, and i'm Abraxas Malfoy." Greeted the blonde, confirming Harry's hypotheses as he quickly examined his appearance; less like Draco and more like his own son, he had broader shoulders and not as much of a blue-blooded appearance, but his hair, let off at a length less popular around this decade, was as bright flaxen as all his other relatives.

"Pleasure to meet you as well." Harry said to 1943's Malfoy heir, and he brusquely picked up his goblet of pumpkin juice to take a breathless draft. "To answer your question," Harry said, turning to Leopold Avery, "No, we are not siblings. Just very close."

"Very close?" Riddle then drawled, and his voice drew everyone's attention like a general's on the cusp of a battle; less so of Malfoy's, which was something Harry took note of. "Your..." he dragged the pause with a polite, head boy's smile, "Your fiancé?"

"Oh, no." Harry disagreed frantically,  _Hermione is Ron's_ was always something he'd tell himself, and then he thought of Ginny, sobering further and ruefully when her bright face was pushed to the forefront of his mind. "Friends. We've stuck together for so long."

Harry wondered then whether Riddle would take this information to use for blackmail. A slytherin that did not bow to someone as mighty as himself would definitely not sit well with him. For the sake of his female friend, Harry decided that he'd at the very least pretend to yield when the time came.

"My apologies for assuming." Riddle repented after a hum, and despite his oh-so convincing kind-hearted voice, Harry was put on edge by his couth smile, the embarassed expression he put on, and how his features twitched. They were things that made a human  _human_ but this man was anything but with that wand at his fingertips and the inherent, natural ability to cast a perfunctory unforgivable.

Harry wrenched his gaze to look around the length of the table where all the green-tie clad students sat, and he acknowledged each and every single look of alienation, ridicule, and open disgust where these pureblooded students gave him their ugliest snarls and twists of face. He involuntarily rubbed the hair on the back of his head like was habit, and after mussing it, he looked at the ravenclaw table, where he saw Hermione laughing-  _it looked a little forced-_ with the two ravenclaws beside her.

The Terry-Boot looking student had since left the great hall and Hermione turned to meet Harry's eyes, then knitting her eyebrows together as she appraised his situation.

.

Hermione had been chuckling at a story about Benett's father when the Terry Boot had left the table and gave her access to freely survey Harry's current state with the slytherins. She turned around when she felt those green eyes of his burning into the back of her scalp, and they met eyes, where Harry was staring at her with a pleading look on his face.

The whole slytherin table, she noticed, was sending these looks at Harry that she'd been sent in her own time, only that now it was particularly vicious. The student in front of him- appearance like he was sculpted as a statue by the Greeks with wavy, dark hair curling over the side of his forehead; beautiful even from this far angle, she was sure, carried a slight carefreeness in his posture when Harry's back was turned that Hermione was hesitant to trust- and he exuded a feel of lordship over the rest of the slytherins, like a king and his peasant subjects.

A polished head boy badge was pinned to his robes, and Hermione suddenly felt a little sick.

Glancing back again at Harry's helpless expression, she mouthed a 'later' at him, which he accepted with a peculiar anxiety in his irises.

"Hermione?" Called Benett, and she whirled back to the Ravenclaw table, where Darcy-Lauren and her other blonde friend leered at her expectantly. She felt spurred on into an annoyance by the way Benett had adressed her after she peeled her eyes off the slytherin table, a cycle wherein she tittered on the edge of the earth as she laid eyes for the first time in 1944 on Head Boy Tom Marvolo Riddle, and she felt the need to snip a  _"Getting all buddy-buddy on me now after a few minutes?"_ at the Prewett boy. But she clenched her teeth and did not.  _Horcrux or not, Tom Riddle inspires a particular sort of anger in you._

" _Hermione Granger._ " Called Darcy-Lauren now, pulling her wholly out of her daze, and when she peered up at the tall brunette, she was smirking coyly.

"I saw you staring at the slytherin table." Darcy said maliciously, who then flipped a lock of straight, waist-length hair over her shoulder to lean up into Hermione's space.

"So?" Asked Hermione petulantly, before sarcastically saying- "This boy, Harry's his name, who's come from France and  _over the sea_ with me to Hogwarts, just so happens to be a slytherin."

"Oh, but that's not all. Harry, Harry, whatever. But you were looking..." She went silent, then said conspiratorially, "at  _Tom Riddle._ "

Darcy-Lauren was smiling so widely that Hermione wondered if the sides of her face hurt. But then, regarding her earlier observation, Hermione scowled, fire running through her veins at the thousands of insinuations that statement edged up on. " _What are you implying?_ " Hermione hissed at her, bushy hairs seeming to crackle.

"Ah, Hermione. Getting so defensive already. But i suppose that's always the first stage we go through." Continued Darcy-Lauren, vague as possible, and even Benett had narrowed his eyes. "But isn't he gorgeous?"

Before Hermione could quip back in snide reply, Darcy-Lauren went on; "Charming, handsome, so, so,  ** _so_** intelligent. Something I noticed earlier when looking at your schedule-- other than the fact you're actively killing yourself with that amount of N.E.W.T. level classes- is that you two have as many subjects as each other. That should make you bolt-smart."

Benett looked dubiously at Hermione, and the curly-haired girl's mouth had fallen wide open like the blade of a guillotine delivering an outlaw's sentence. "He's the whole package, honestly. Too bad ma's saddled me with this German bloke called, I think, Alexandre. But we all can just admire our Head Boy from afar."

Darcy-Lauren appeared to be on the brink of rattling on some more about the slytherin, but Hermione was made firey by how she'd gone from the Fred and George Weasley type to the little simpering, heart-eyes teen girl, and she cut her off with a curt, deadpan; "Actually, to be frank, this Riddle character seems a little dodgy. Creepy how all those other Slytherins look at him like a leader."

Benett seemed relieved by Hermione's statement and Hermione thought she heard him mumble an "At least someone gets it", but Darcy-Lauren was quick to exclaim- "Because he demands it! It's in his nature. Like he was molded by the heavens above."

"I think I agree with Hermione." Cut in Benett, who was looking with a tic in his jaw at Darcy. His voice then dropped in volume. "He's very shady. I remember in fifth year, just after that Chamber incident, I saw him corner someone in this dusty corridor."- Hermione perked up- "Dorea Black, if I recall correctly, and he looked like he was threatening her, but I sped off before he noticed.  _Very_ suspicious. And speaking about the chamber-"

"Oh, shut up!" Whisper-yelled Darcy in return. "If you're about to go off on another tangent about how Tom  _bloody_ Riddle opened the chamber of secrets, let me tell you in advance that it's absolute utter drivel!"

Throughout all this, Hermione was quietly eating her cutlets, the downcast eyes fooling those into thinking she wasn't listening but she was  _very_ interested. "Poor Rubeus." Mused Benett, ignoring Darcy-Lauren's earlier statement. "Once sat with me on the train. Can't imagine a boy like that would be a murderer. Acromantula, sure, but that Warren, i'm positive, was not killed by an Acromantula. Would she not be maimed in the forest? Found her skeleton? Poisoned? Didn't find any poison in the body. No, she was found dead, yes, but relatively unwounded in a puddle in the toilets."

"So what's next?  _Tom's the heir of Slytherin?_ Should I bring you to the St. Mungo's?"

However interesting the contents of their bickering were, and having decided that Benett would be a better card than Darcy would be, Hermione absentmindedly forked her peas around before finally turning back to the Slytherin table. This time, as she met Harry's eyes, they were full of frazzled nerves. She looked at the time--  _nearly nine._

"I'm gonna go." She said to both Benett and Darcy, picking up her rucksack. The two nodded absentmindedly in return before resuming their arguing, and Hermione noticed then they'd just veered the topic into whether the new Herbology teacher was actually a vampire.

Hermione sauntered over to the slytherin table, where Harry looked relieved to find her nearing and a boy beside him had stopped talking to Riddle in favor of glaring at her nastily.

"Harry." She flatlined, gripping tightly onto her schedule. "Herbology."

"Oh, your muddy-bloody girlfriend. Isn't this romantic?" Snarled the boy beside Harry, and the stranger had a dull look in his eyes that made Hermione recall Crabbe and Goyle and their stupid emptyheadedness. She bit her tongue in a retort after acknowledging the dark stare that she felt burning into her from Harry's front.

"Oh,  _please_ shut up, Avery, and find something outside a baby's vocabulary to insult with." Desperately moaned a white-blonde to Harry's left- a Malfoy, definitely. Avery, who Hermione thought was as deaf as the amount of braincells he did not have, whispered another derogatory  _"Mudbloods."_ at her and Harry.

"Yes, 'Mione, just wait a second while I get these-" Harry hissed when a prissy-looking Slytherin Girl, blonde hair tied into a tight two pigtails, knocked his bag over with a dramatic wand movement and a cracking-voiced incantation, and spilled a few of his things out. While Harry sent a whispered stinging hex at the girl beneath the table, Hermione nonverbally flicked her wand to push his fallen things back into his bag, and felt the gaze upon her strengthen.

She finally glanced up, the Gryffindor in her scratching for a challenge, and met the raven-dark eyes of Tom Marvolo Riddle, head boy of 1944. He stared at her intensely, more beautiful closer as his waves of hair fell into his colourless eyes, and she wanted to puke and sigh at the same time. When she'd felt another brush against her mind's vellum, so slight, she pushed against it so instinctively and so hardly that he relented and left her premises.

His eyes narrowed and a smile crept up on his lips.

_What in the-_

"Thanks, Hermione. Let's go." Harry said, and Hermione glanced away, but not before Harry noticed she'd been looking ahead.  _At Riddle._ Harry ground his teeth together and stood up.

"Mind if I bring you both to Herbology? You're new and aren't familiar with the castle." The Malfoy offered then, gracious as a prince- which Hermione supposed he was, being a Malfoy. She looked apprehensively at Harry, who then twitched his shoulders and nodded at the white-blonde, making him beam at them with spotless white teeth. He was very handsome, Hermione thought, unlike the ferret-y features of his future grandson.

"Of course, Mister....?" Hermione said, in an attempt to catch his name.

"Malfoy, Abraxas Malfoy." He returned with another large, chivalrous smile. Hermione's lashes fluttered. Not so like his grandson.

Leaving Riddle with not even a parting glance, Hermione, Harry, and Abraxas left the hall for the Slytherin-Ravenclaw Herbology class.

 


	5. Chapter Four

**_Chapter Four; Tom Riddle is Pretty Annoying_ **   
  
  


**_Hair's on fire; must've lost her wits, yeah._ **   
_Pumped up Kicks, Foster the People._   
  


 

The week passed by quietly, like the calm before the definite storm. Developments had been made; Harry was shunned, for the most part, by the Slytherins with the exception of (openly) Riddle -(but was he really counted, anyway?) Abraxas Malfoy, and a friendly and civil Alphard Black. Hermione had gone and grown fond of Benett, Darcy-Lauren, and one of Darcy's Hufflepuff friends named Harper Fawley, a short girl with bright hazel eyes and black hair that liked to inattentively think about flowers and lambs and reminded Hermione of Luna Lovegood.

 _I mean,_ she thought bitterly one Saturday night,  _Not like i'm getting back to the future anytime soon, so I suppose I have to get somewhat 'in'._ But she would never quite be 'in', she knew.

Other developments were those such as Harry often tagging along their friend knit, first on that Hogsmeade weekend where they'd drowned themselves in butterbeer, and that they had gotten Occlumency lessons from Dumbledore- every after Wednesday, which was how Hermione and Harry learnt how to build up a basic wall that could withstand maybe a minute or two from an efficient legilimens.

Hermione found that life in the 1940's was not as bad as she'd expect; ravenclaw-slytherin classes were quiet aside from a few insults about her blood, and with Harry here with her, she felt like she was half submerged in a memory of the future (er- past present?) while the rest of her was held up in '44. Things passed by and got done; Harry and Hermione shifted into this date quite easily.

The duo did, however, talk often about how exactly to go about bringing Riddle to ruins. Such was the event today, a Friday before class, in the mid-side of the classroom, with a 'mufliatto' cast. Not exactly ideal when Advanced Potions had quite a few snakes in it- including Riddle- which was what Hermione was trying to tell Harry while she hurriedly looked around her bag for her History of Magic essay, ( _never hurts to be sure it's there.)_

"Agh, where is that thing?" Hermione yelled, dread laced into her hysterical voice, which Harry shrugged off on a whim before continuing-

"Well, you know, I was thinking about that joke you made last time we had one of these 'plan' conversations- the one about, well," he stopped to smile, and Hermione was a hundred and three percent sure of what he was about to say, "Avada-ing him in a dingy corridor? That's actually really brilliant, you know."

"Harry, that was a  _joke,_ and we do not want our arses in Azkaban in case Riddle somehow senses these two out-of-nowhere Beauxbatons students are about to murder him." Hermione explained for what she felt was the umpteenth time, and before Harry was about to say another word, a broad-shouldered man with a shock of flaxen hair strode gracefully into the room, accompanied by an unusually happy Tom Riddle. Hermione tensed just a little as her fingers finally found purchase around her rolled up History of Magic essay. The girl quickly broke the Muffliato and Harry waved friendlily at both, careful not to strain his smile as he looked at the blonde's darker-haired counterpart.

"Fancy seeing you here, Abraxas, Riddle." Hermione said passively, quickly averting her stare as she somehow made some eye contact with the young Dark Lord and to her History Essay, which she opened smoothly with a blunt crunch of paper. The four, after the addition of the two other slytherins, were the only ones currently in the Potions classroom; but Hermione could tell by the faraway bustle in the halls that the class was just about to fill in.

"Likewise, Mister Potter and Miss Granger." Riddle chirped cheerily before setting his leather bag quietly down at the seat at the classroom's front, a three seats north of them, followed by a docile Abraxas Malfoy. For a few brief seconds Hermione found her fingers twisting about and twitching at the joints around her sleek quill as she stared at the dark hair at the back of the Head Boy's head, as though to contemplate stabbing him right in the area where it concaved between the nape and the scalp, before looking down again at her History of Magic essay, posture a thin line between lax and tense.

She mulled broodingly over her essay, Harry reading some strange book that was magicked at the cover into an image of two purple-eyed blue humanoids with the words  _"Neptunians: Beyond our Bounds"_ written on the bottom in garish golden lettering- and in that slot of time the Potions classroom had students in both green and blue embroidered robes filing in with indistinct chatter. It must have taken about seven minutes for Professor Horace Slughorn, fifty years younger, to enter the class.

The first time Harry and Hermione had set their eyes upon the younger-now professor they'd been so deeply disturbed- moreso than Dumbledore, oddly enough- with the man's passing at their very knees fresh and raw within their minds, but as he dawdled around awkwardly at the teacher's desk, hands rummaging and moving around something-or-other in the shelves, Hermione found herself about to chew distractedly on her quill after her eyes had flicked up from her essay.

"Good morning, class!" Professor Slughorn finally greeted jovially, large belly heaving up as he smiled widely at them with crinkled eyes. "Today we'll be discussing..."

He 'indiscreetly' pulled up his pants some more with his fingers in the belt loops, and began writing some words quickly in the air in shining lettering; and when his deft hand dropped at last to his side, the words " _Polyjuice Potion_ " displayed themselves above his desk, glittering softly.

"Polyjuice Potion!" He finished with a wave of his arm, vanishing the airborne words with a hand's swipe. "Can anyone tell me what Polyjuice Potion is?"

No one raised their hand and Hermione, even though she was itching to answer it, stayed still.

After a stretch of no sound, Tom Riddle finally took some sick pity on the class and raised his hand.

"Mister Riddle?"

"Polyjuice Potion is a potion that, when drank, gives the drinker the form of another person. It takes about a month to brew, inclusive of the preparation prior to making it."

"Excellent, Tom! Ten points to slytherin." Slughorn complimented, practically shining, and Hermione was grossed out by the amount of doting with which he smothered the murderer, who, with an acutely arrogant expression, sat back down to continue writing some short notes.

"Mister Riddle was impeccable in his description of Polyjuice Potion. It is a potion even advanced and highly skilled witches and wizards are hesitant to make, and when taken, the form you have assumed can last from ten minutes to twelve hours."

He wrote some more on the blackboard. "Polyjuice is made with Lacewing Flies, Leeches, Powdered Bicorn Horn, Knotgrass, Fluxweed, Shredded Boomslang Skin, and..." He chalked off what he'd written with a dull scratch, "The body part of the person you'd like to turn into- toenails, teeth, a finger joint- but most frequently, hair. Just a strand is needed."

The class eventually slept into the usual droning-on discussion, and in the middle of the it, Slughorn had announced he had a sudden assignment to give the students, and a few of them, moaning tiredly, begrudgingly turning their heads up at him.

"I am assigning you projects and you will all be partnered according to this pre-made list. This hat," He held up a large parchment and then conjured a fancy, quilted tophat, made from shiny burgundy velvet that had a few gaudy violet feathers tied on by a thick lace around it, "Is full of pieces of parchment, each with the name of a potion on it. You and your partner will first have to make an essay of the potion on its effects, history, and such, and then actually attempt to brew it during your freetime. It should be done by the first quarter of March."

Students seemed deterred altogether by the contents of the assignment; particularly the part about pre-picked partners, and as they loudly began to voice their thoughts, Slughorn's smile faltered. "Settle down, students. I will now be reading the list of partners, please sit with them after you're announced..."

"Matthew Yaxley and Malia Goldstein, Dana Ellis and Edward Selwyn, Octavius Greengrass and Montgomery Tackhook, Harry Evans and Anastacia Watts..." Listed Slughorn methodically. Hermione watched as every student, one by one, took their places (uneasily, at times) beside their assigned partners, and as the tophat that rustled with the papers tumbling inside floated down peacefully onto Slughorn's desk. The list was dwindling in names and soon, it was just her, Riddle, three ravenclaws she was not sure she had acquainted herself properly with yet, one hufflepuff, and another two slytherins. The bushy-haired girl gripped her quill harder.

"Ida Hopkirk and Daniel Macmillan,  **Hermione Granger and Tom Riddle,** Orla Shafiq and Marcy Ferns, and, lastly, Maximillian Travers and Eleanor Ollivander."

It was there that Hermione Granger felt truly like avada-ing first Tom Riddle, and then the man teaching in front of the Potions classroom, and the low, narrow-spanned swinging of her legs- a habit she'd suddenly acquired; ceased abruptly.

Hermione loudly snapped her quill and, at the condescending looks she received, hurried to get another one, not missing the expectant, politely-smiling face her dark-haired now-partner was shooting at her shamelessly from the front of the class. In spite of the telltale bristle of the hairs on her nape she got when either Riddle of Harry were staring at her back, she could tell her friend would have been sending her this wan look of his, and with a huff, she made her way over to Tom Riddle's table, setting herself down on the chair that Abraxas had long vacated after having been partnered with a half-Singaporean named Irene Whitby.

"Miss Granger, what a pleasure." He said to her in a quiet voice in second greeting, posture straight, dark hair falling in front of his beautiful face as it always did- and like it always did, it made her feel ill in her whole and her bone's marrow. Professor Slughorn's continued babbling did not go unheard but was purposefully tuned out as Hermione stared defiantly back at the dark lord at her side, nodding curtly.

"Mr. Riddle," she said back, as though preparing to say something else particular, but instead giving him a taut half-smile. "I suppose so." She went for instead, and he tilted his head at her, having the locks on his forehead fall back farther down.

"We're partners, and i'm joyed." He declared, reminding Hermione of a tentative child telling their foster parent about their day at school. He tapped his fingers against the firwood desk; businesslike as he sat on his next words' cliff's edge, and said, "I quite like the technique with which you make your potions."

"It's really nothing." Hermione said, and her words were a bit clipped- Riddle seemed put off by her tone- but it was not a lie. Hermione was  _purposely_ holding back in all her classes with the head boy (but of course, she still performed so well in all tests and essays that both Professors Kettleburn and Binns told her she was giving Tom Riddle a run for his money in those areas); she made her potions above average to keep up her 'good, but not extraordinary' facade and it was killing her. It was an honest blessing that Harry was doing the same after he'd become more adept at Potions post-Snape's textbook- she didn't even raise her hand as often as she'd like in classes she  _didn't_ share with vipers.

"It isn't nothing," Tom insisted, and when he expected Hermione to blush, she didn't. He continued, "but I won't be dishonest and say there are no areas to improve on."

 _'Good, but nothing of worth.'_ Hermione translated dully. Slughorn was having each of the partners pick a paper from his fancy little tophat.

"Yeah."

He responded in a guarded hum, and Slughorn soon reached their table, holding out the hat where small, rolled up strips of parchment rustled around inside. "Tom, m'boy! Pick one- or would you rather Miss Granger would?" The professor asked with raised brows, genial face brightening as he looked appraisingly at his star student.

"Ah, it would only be polite to have Miss Granger pick for us two, of course." Tom Riddle said, words debonair and quite smarmy; a tad glassy in Hermione's humble opinion, but the Potions professor seemed not to notice a thing wrong- or the mysterious lack of anything wrong thereof.

"Oh, Tom! Always so gentlemanly." Professor Slughorn yelled, words resounding throughout the class, and Hermione watched- in revulsion- how easily Tom Riddle managed to blush on command. She was addled further by the wink Professor Slughorn gave her in reference to her now potions partner. "Now, go on then, Miss Granger."

Hermione reluctantly cast her hand into the depths of the tophat, fingers wriggling around for a few moments in blind search, before clasping one rolled up paper in her index finger and middle. She took it out quickly, and like it was automated, it unrolled to reveal its contents written across in flashy, spindly font;  ** _hate potion_**. Slughorn had, by then, trotted off and over to Eleanor Ollivander and a distracted-looking Maximillian Travers.

"Hate potion." Read Tom simply, cheek now pressed against his knuckles as his elbow leaned against their desk. Hermione squinted her eyes.

"Hate potion," She repeated- and faltered. "Yes, er, hate potion. Reveals the worst aspects of a person when drank."

"Mhm." Tom Riddle mused, eyes half-mast casting a short shadow over his high cheekbones. He continued on, articulating his words in a way that was dime-store and facile, "Inconvenient if we happened to drink some, so we should be careful."

"I agree." Hermione said, choosing to ignore the words that should definitely have not sounded like a threat- it would not have if she had not known virtually everything about this man beside her that he overtly kept hidden. "Anything in mind for where we should meet to make the potion, then?"

Riddle appeared to deliberate over this, posture going a bit more stiff than just before, until he suggested, with his fingers tapping against the desk again, "I know this alcove on the fourth floor. Beside a painting of a man in very large pantaloons. I could show you if you'd like, after class."

"Oh, no!" Hermione exclaimed (whisper-exclaimed) out on instinct, the thought of being alone in some dim corridor with this man for more than a second dizzying her. But her headstrong mind challenged that with an  _It's inevitable, you know._

Her more-earnestly-than-intended voice did not go unobserved by Riddle's perpetually looking eyes. Deciding that if she were to say she  _was_ actually available after that outburst, she would look like a moron, she quickly amended the situation with a fumbled excuse, "I mean, I cannot, i'm sorry. There's something I need to get up to after this period. And I-"

She was about to tell him she already knew that particular alcove around the bend of the scowling, pantaloon-clad man whose name she couldn't quite remember from her childhood gallivanting with Harry and Ron, but stopped just short of saying so.  _How weird would it have been for a transfer to suddenly know the particular hidey hole you're talking about?_

"Maybe you could show me when we meet again for brewing it? What days and times are you available next week?" She toned formally, beginning to stick her things such as her forever refilling inkwell, notes, and quills into her rugged rucksack when Slughorn dismissed the class. Tom Riddle began to do the same, and Hermione, with incredulous eyes, noticed the considerable shortness and implicitness of his own notes. She would have thought that the "most brilliant student to have ever passed Hogwarts" would have taken reams of paper upon reams of notes, but a downtrodden expression befell her at how he clearly seemed to breeze through the magical institution.

"Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday before dinner. And you?" He questioned after, and he clapped the black leather flap on his own bag closed, an empty smack accompanying the action. 

"Every day before dinner except for Wednesdays." She answered, shouldering her rucksack on and blowing an aberrant wavy hair out of her eyes. "Tuesdays?"

"Maybe Tuesdays and Thursdays. I like getting things done as fast and as efficiently as possible."

Hermione pondered to herself how she too liked to get things done 'as fast and as efficiently as possible', as he so put it. In the nooks of her mind, she grimaced at the similarity.

"Right. I suppose i'll see you next Tuesday week before dinner? Are you alright with meeting me by the entrance to the Ravenclaw commons?"

"Of course." Confirmed Riddle, and he held out a hand. She presumed she had to take it and shake it, so she clasped it in her own.

But then, he raised it up to press it to his lips.

Thank Circe that Hermione resisted the reflex to recoil and run down the hallways to get as far away from him as possible. She recalled, in a translucent memory, that Abraxas himself had done the same after the time they first met and he'd escorted her and Harry to Herbology, and that she'd gone painfully red when the Malfoy had done it, but she could not be so sure now. It was the same emotion of 'confused and a little revolted' mixed with the sugary sweet you feel when confronted with some dreamy man on horse that she'd gotten when she had first seen Tom Marvolo Riddle weeks ago in the dining hall.

"Until then, Miss Granger." He said, and swept out of the potions classroom.

Hermione stood there for a while in thought, before she ardently rubbed her violated knuckle against her robes. She wanted to peel the skin off of it, strangely enough, but that would not be optimal. She had not been expecting to come into a face-to-face conversation with Lord Voldemort today, knew she'd acted a little off, and resolved firmly to do some better acting next time they spoke.

She then began to walk out the class, wanting to get to lunch now, but was pulled in the other direction by some unseen force as soon as she stepped out the doorway. Assuming it was Riddle, she hurried to nonverbally cast a  _petrificus totalus,_ but Harry was faster to assure that; "Hermione, it's me!"

He shed the invisibility cloak, and Hermione was mortified. "Bloody hell, Harry!"- Ron must've rubbed off her, she pondered wistfully- "Why do you just happen to have that thing on hand?"

"I carry it around my bag." He quipped casually, horrifying Hermione, before his eyes hardened. " _You're partnered with Riddle."_

"Yes, I do happen to be." She deadpanned, casting another muffliato around their area. "Any more facts you have to say?"

"Did he hurt you?" Harry quizzed her, green eyes alarmed, and when he ignored her cheek, she softened. She shook her head, lips pursed.

"No. Actually, not much happened. Didn't even prod me about my past, but i'm sure he'll be able to during our--"

"Your  _twice a week_ meetings."

"Yes. You should already know what we spoke of. Just charming half-blood Tom Riddle and bushy-haired muggleborn Hermione Granger conversing over the details of their potions project." She said, thinking over whether to tell Harry of the kiss on her hand or not. She decided she wouldn't.

"But what if during those meetings, he'll--" Harry tried, voice sounding like he was about to lose the last person who ever truly knew him. Hermione softened even further.

 _"Harry."_ She quieted him, voice a silent plea. And then she fortified, "Harry."

After a pause, she resumed, "I can defend myself. And I don't think i'm stupid enough to deliberately provoke him- but if he wants to pull up a cruciatus, know how long I held up under Bellatrix's."

Harry looked at her for a long time in the hallway, eyes wide, before his soft fingers tucked a curl behind her ear and he stepped away with a sigh. "Alright."

"Alright?"

"Yeah. Let's get to lunch." He said, and they walked down to the great hall.

.

(some violence below)

That later evening, Hogwarts was quiet. It was boring and it was soft. But unbeknownst to the castle's other inhabitants- but theorized, maybe, by two brand new students, the room of requirement was  _not_ boring or quiet or soft.

Evan Rosier doubled over, wracking with sobs that he tried in vain to rein in. The sounds made in place was quite ugly and annoying, so Tom Marvolo Riddle, with a drive of his white yew wand, intensified the power of the cruciatus curse. Evan screamed then, and normally Tom liked his followers toning that down, but right now it gratified him.

"State your crime again, won't you, Evan?"

His voice was cold as arctic wind, and his dark eyes even moreso. He smirked in satisfaction when Dolohov flinched.

"It.. Tom-"

" _Tom?"_

He slashed his wand down the screaming resumed. Leopold Avery, petty little thing he was, had the nerve to try and cover an eye, and the young Voldemort silently dragged him nearby like a ragdoll, spelling his eyes open at an unnatural diameter. "Watch." He ordered him simply.

He bolstered the curse, and with a smaller flick of his wand, blood was pouring out the Rosier's mouth in small streams, dripping down onto the slab floor. Leopold muffled a whimper.  _Salazar, what wimps._

" _Honestly,_ I thought you were rather intelligent; especially in this bunch I have gathered here, but maybe I overestimated as you seem to have  _completely_  forgotten our manner of addressing each other in both public and private."

"My lord," Evan managed to dredge out, and he spat out a larger amount of crimson. Tom Riddle willed it, and the room provided a blood replenishing potion. He gave it to the writhing boy, stopping the curse, and the other teen urgently took it to drink.

"State your crimes."

Evan took a moment or to to respond, hacking at the potion's awful taste, before quickly replying at the threatening twitch of Riddle's yew wand.

"I- I referred to you as 'My Lord' in front of Professor Merrythought, my lord." He said pitifully, and Tom Riddle nodded, stoic.

"Correct. Why is it a mistake that you have done this?"

"It was in front of a professor, my lord. Professors sh-shouldn't..." Rosier took a shuddering breath. He rubbed his eyes, and Tom Riddle gripped his wand tighter, jerking it menacingly again.

"Professors shouldn't know anything of the nature of our relationship, my lord. Or... Nor should anyone, f-for that matter."

"Correct. What do you suppose I should do in response to your insolence?"

Evan's eyes enlargened at the cold implications, and he bit his lip hard but just not enough to draw blood- it was something he needed as much of as possible- but he still answered. "I th-think the cruciatus curse would be most appropriate, my lord."

"Yes." Riddle agreed casually, and winding his wand through the air, Evan began to scream again. Slytherin's heir turned to a bored-looking Abraxas Malfoy, and he watched the whole show with the same eyes he looked at everything else; be it the dungeon's stone walls or some vapid plant-tending in Herbology.

"Now that that is taken care of, Abraxas. Report?"

"Alphard Black is still resistant to our invitations, it seems, and once again we have had to obliviate him. However, Barnum Goyle says he is willing to join our cause, and wherever he goes we know that Crabbe will most definitely follow, my lord."

Tom Riddle remained emotionless at the news and nodded slowly, annoyed at the thought of that boy of the Blacks' who never showed any hint he shared any of the Knights' sentiments, and that they had only managed to wrangle in Goyle and Crabbe- housemates which he knew had little more than twenty braincells. "Okay," he said with finality, waving Abraxas away, who bowed respectfully before rearing into the row.

"Mulciber?"

"I have two cousins in France that say they have information on the  _objects_ you require, my lord."

Tom Riddle's interested was piqued. "Continue."

"They say they would want to meet a Wednesday following graduation in regards to Ravenclaw's diadem." Apollo Mulciber answered, while Riddle placidly ended the cruciatus on Rosier, and the black-haired boy nodded again, deeming the news satisfactory.

"Rosier?"

The boy gulped, apple bobbing impudently in his throat's column. Riddle wondered how many fingers he'd have to press to snap it.

"My f-family retrieved the Ministry records of Granger and Evans, but the lines are very bare; no notable connections or relatives. Their birth place- Massachusetts- went to Ilvermorny then Beauxbatons. Granger's a mudblood, Evan's mother's some distant Potter working for MACUSA. Nothing we don't know, my lord."

Tom bit his lip irritantly, forgoing giving him another crucio. Abraxas perked up as though wanting to suggest something, and Riddle waved. "Yes, Malfoy?"

"From the sound of it, it might be a forgery."

"Yes, that was what I was thinking as well." Riddle mused. "Dumbledore doesn't seem too one with the government- but he's respected by some lot of ignoramuses- and he's likely the one who'd have gotten the papers to the ministry without complaint. They appear to be close to him, strangely." How the blasted professor and the transfers sometimes shared weird smiles in the great halls did not get past him.

His subjects all nodded sycophantically, and Riddle thought of the next plan of action. It hit him.

"Abraxas, court Granger." As an afterthought, he added, "Mulciber, get Granger's and Evans's academic records."

Mulciber acquiesced without question. The same could not be said for Abraxas.

Malfoy choked for a second, pale blue eyes widening. "P-pardon me, my lord?"

"Did I stutter?" Riddle asked, and Malfoy, seeming to know he was treading ice, quickly shook his head in a way that he made sure was not so eager. Apparently, though, he was not done yet.

"I apologize, my lord, but it would be very frowned upon- all my family would  _ostracize_ me, and that foreign muggle blood she has running through her veins would stain me forever."

"Are you trying to defy me?" Riddle questioned him, voice deathly quiet, but before Abraxas was able to say any answer, he was shaking on the flagstone the room of requirement provided under the cruciaus, quietly suffering. His mouth was also bleeding, but it was probably from biting his tongue far too hard.

"Now, since i'm feeling so  _good_ and  ** _generous_** this evening," he said while ruthlessly cruciating the blonde, "I suppose I should explain."

"Mudblood or not, I feel she couldbe more of a threat- It's a long shot when she isn't any more noteworthy in academics than any other student taking the same NEWT level classes as far as I know- but you can never be too careful. She's withdrawn and does good to hide her fright while Evans's transparent as glass. So what I think is is that she'll open up under some...  _smoother persuasion_. What we can do about Evans isn't our top priority as we can think about it in the near future. Anyway, since you seem terrified of retaliation from your family, I can assure you that this isn't a marriage i'm asking for.

"But, my lord," Leopold Avery said daringly before he could help it, "Why don't  _you_ court her?"

Tom Riddle fixed the insolent boy with a cold stare. "Aside from needing not to have me any more polluted by even being in the presence of some magic thief, she doesn't like me much. Very unlike the other girls in our grade, the bitch seems apalled by me, as much as she tries to hide it, but she might take better to Abraxas."

"I understand, my lord." Abraxas simpered docilely, running a hand through his pale hair with a distinct fray in his posture after Tom had ended the curse.

"Good." Riddle beamed a tad too happily. "How do you plan to go about that?"

"I could wait for her after classes- we share Advanced Ancient Runes- and ask her out to Hogsmeade." The Malfoy responded, his voice threaded with a robotic quality, and he shakily stood up. Tom's eyes darted to a silver watch that gleamed on his wrist.

"This meeting is adjourned. That idiot Slughorn needs me to help him collect some potion ingredients." Tom finished, and after everyone else had bowed and walked out, Tom left last, the room of requirement's doors snapping closed and greying into the walls.

It was a rather insubstantial meeting, Riddle thought. Because he always achieved in everything he needed to, and those transfers were no different.

Everything was smoothsailing.


End file.
